


The Color of my Heart

by Dawnwind



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-20
Updated: 2011-04-20
Packaged: 2017-10-18 09:59:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/187697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dawnwind/pseuds/Dawnwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Starsky's shooting, Hutch resolves to fight back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Color of my Heart

Red on white

Red dabs and splatters, splotches and blobs. Some big, some little. If he squinted his eyes he could almost pretend the red was flowers. A field of poppies, or rose petals scattered on a white table cloth at his sister Karen's wedding.

Or conversely, some ceremonial flag--the brilliant ball on the Japanese flag, maybe. Or if he moved just a little this way, to include a hint of blue, then a battle worn Stars and Stripes, the proud red and white all smeared together in a sodden mess.

No.

No battles. Not anymore. Something serene and beautiful--the field of poppies, where Dorothy Gale slept peacefully beside the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodsman. Much better.

Hutch ran the edge of his finger nail along a particularly large smear of red on the back of his hand, digging into his skin until it hurt. The tiny flair of pain punched into his subconscious, bringing him back to the present. The one place he really didn't want to be.

He pulled in a ragged breath and poked at the red smears across his shirt and jacket.

His clothes were no longer their original colors. No more off-white jacket and blue shirt. Just red. All red. Or more precisely, because it was important to keep one's priorities straight at a time like this, brick. That ugly dull color blood became as it dried.

Blood.

Starsky's blood.

Too much blood.

Hutch was covered in it. Steeped in it. He'd knelt in blood, there in the Metro parking lot, and rolled Starsky over onto his back. Four bullets, three in the back and out the chest, the fourth caught somewhere under the right arm.

He'd placed his hands in the blood, in a futile attempt to push the blood back in where it belonged. He could feel Starsky's heart pumping the blood out of the artificial openings in his chest, overwhelming any attempts to staunch the flow. The beats were frantic at first, then slowed until Hutch was certain that Starsky's heart would stop all together.

But that valiant pump had held on until the paramedics arrived. Held on as the ambulance sped across town, lights and sirens parting traffic as Moses had once done at the Red Sea. Held on as he was wheeled into the trauma center where professionals would try to stem the river of blood.

As far as Hutch knew, Starsky still lived. At least no one had emerged from the OR to tell him otherwise.

He rubbed his hands together, the dried blood on his palms flaking off. He had the oddest urge to catch each tiny particle and save it as a treasure.

 _Starsky--oh god--Starsky._ What if dried blood was all that he had left of his partner?

He couldn't think beyond the now. Right now Starsky was alive in surgery. Right now Hutch could breathe. That was all. Nothing more to be said--to be felt. He wouldn't allow himself to contemplate the unimaginable. The worst scenario. That was impossible.

So now he would just exist, sustained by the same heartbeat that kept Starsky alive.

"Mr. Hutchinson?"

Hutch startled so badly that he nearly blacked out, the whole room fading to nothingness before his next breath brought the world back into focus.

"Are you all right? Just keep breathing. Can I get you something? Water?"

Hutch peered up at the anxious woman blathering in front of him, irritation finally blotting out the terror that had held him in check.

"I'm okay," he snapped.

That had been rude. He could see it on her face, the way she was vacillating between concern and insult. "Sorry," he amended. "I'm . . ."

She smiled, her eyes flicking to his clothes and then back to his face. "I'm Calla, one of the volunteers here. I came over to offer whatever help I could." She looked down again, seemingly fascinated by his attire.

Hutch followed her gaze. He was saturated in blood, like some zombie in a horror movie. His shirt was glued to his skin with the stuff. It was the only thing he could truly feel. Nothing else seemed real. He was hollow, devoid of any emotion except that of overwhelming terror.

"I'm really okay," he said at last because she appeared to be waiting for some sort of response.

"I can get you some food," Calla suggested.

The very idea made his belly roil alarmingly. "No."

"A shower, then!" she said firmly, as if the whole thing had already been decided in advance. Maybe it had. Maybe the hospital personnel were worried that he was scaring the other waiting families with his ghoulish costume. "There's a washer and dryer here, too. You can use the shower in the family room, then borrow some scrubs until your clothes are all clean."

"Starsky's in there." Hutch pointed to the doors of the OR. Surely the surgeon would come bounding through any minute with good news. He couldn't leave until that happened.

"Yes, that's why you're here," Calla said gently. "But the surgery will take a while. Did the surgeon say?"

"Exploratory . . ." Hutch said. He'd only heard that one word in ten when the surgeon was talking to him. Dobey had been there. Minnie Kaplan, too, he thought, but he wasn't at all certain of that. Maybe Dobey would know the answer?

"They have to follow the paths of the bullets." He could still see those holes, front and back, on Starsky's body. Where no holes should be. "There was massive damage."

"So, it will take some time. Even if you aren't here, the doctor can find you. He'll be able to talk to you when everything is finished." She took his arm, leading him down the hall.

Hutch automatically matched her stride but kept looking back at those doors. How long since Starsky had disappeared behind them? What was happening? What had the surgeon discovered?

"There's a shower in there."

They were standing in a drab room furnished with scuffed chairs and a wobbly table. A cupboard yielded a pack of toiletries and folded green scrubs. "Just throw those dirty clothes in the hamper there." Calla smiled encouragingly, giving Hutch the impression she had once taught kindergarten, but her manner was calming to his ravaged spirit, and he nodded. "I can put them in the washer and dryer. It only takes an hour."

She slipped out the door, leaving Hutch to puzzle out how to undress and turn on the tap. He felt helpless and bereft. Unable to function independent of his best friend. How had that happened? When had they become so entwined? He was light-headed and woozy, nauseated and trembling, and he hadn't bled a drop.

The emergency room doctor had cautioned that Starsky could exsanguinate-- bleed out until there was not enough blood left in the veins and arteries to sustain life. That his heart could stop simply from that. His blood pressure was precariously low and surgery was risky. That had sent Dobey and Minnie off to the blood bank to donate, Babcock and Simmons, too. Hutch had been afraid to leave the waiting room, fearful of being too far from Starsky's side.

They'd finally let him in briefly, just before whisking the patient off to surgery. Already Starsky was a patient, a set of vitals with multiple GSW to the torso, a hemothorax . . .the list went on too long. Hutch stood looking down at an alien Starsky--too pale, unmoving, barely alive. He'd closed his fingers around the blood covering his palm and held it safe. The way he hadn't been able to hold Starsky.

Hutch came back to himself with the water from the shower stall splashing over the green tiled floor. His feet were wet. How long had he been standing there, holding his shirt in his hands? Once a brilliant blue that Starsky could have worn, it now looked drab and colorless against the darker shade of the soaked-in stains.

"Mr. Hutchinson?" Calla called from outside the bathroom. "Can I take your clothes?"

He removed his t-shirt and jeans with jerky uncoordinated movements, holding the door open just enough to pass them through. Even naked, he was clothed in blood, less visible, but he still knew it was there. Rusty speckles decorated his face. There was a red print on his arm, in the shape of four fingers and a thumb--where Dobey had pulled him away from Starsky to let the paramedics take over.

Reaching into the shower, Hutch adjusted the flow and temperature, but didn't step under the cleansing water. How could he wash off all evidence of Starsky? How could he lose the one thing he had left?

He steadied himself against the tiled wall with his left hand, breathing rapidly to stay in the here and now. Blood was caked under his fingernails, embedded in the lines of his palm, Starsky's cells merging with his own. Starsky had given him strength, at the expense of his own life, and Hutch couldn't ignore the gift any longer. He'd coasted on fear for too many hours, waiting for the resolution of something he had no control over. Now was the time to turn what was left around. He would find out who did this and retaliate, for Starsky. Because of Starsky.

With infinite care, he scraped the remaining flakes of blood from his left hand onto a paper towel from the dispenser and folded it four times into a snug little square.

Finally, grief weighing him down, he stepped into the shower, and stood watching as the water sluiced over his body to wash him clean. At first there was only a trickle of pale reddish water circling the drain, but then the pool at his feet turned darker before it disappeared into the sewer system

 _Oh, God._

Hutch pressed his hands to his face, letting go of the tears that had banked behind his eyes. If he lost Starsky, he lost everything. The past year, he'd lashed out at everyone, but most of all Starsky. Whatever was the problem, Starsky was to blame because it was easy to blame Starsky. Starsky so seldom fought back against him.

Until Kira. That one punch, right to the belly had been a wakeup call of major proportions. Starsky had been his constant and he'd almost let him slip away through neglect. He'd taken their lives for granted, pretending he wasn't disillusioned with the legal system, tired of battling wrongs that couldn't be righted, and slogging through a life that had lost meaning.

That one punch, over Kira, who never should have come between them. Could he lay all the blame at Kira's feet? Was she any different from what they had been themselves, a few years back? They'd shared countless women, Starsky bedding Kathy on a Wednesday while Hutch made time with Nancy, and then trading them around on Thursday. What had made Kira so different? Because she was the one who was using them as interchangeable bed partners, like two Ken dolls snugged up against Barbie in a box? Or was it because Starsky had claimed to love her?

Hutch had never believed Starsky. That was obvious, since he'd so easily let himself be lured by Kira's charms. And just as obviously, he'd completely missed that Starsky was as frustrated and defeated as he was. Starsky never would have grasped at someone like Kira as if she were his last hope for a wife if he'd been his usual optimistic self. Starsky's brash, boisterous personality made it harder to see when he was down. He hid it well, or maybe Hutch just had stopped paying attention.

That single blow to his pride had brought the whole situation into focus.. He could still feel the pain of rejection and utter loss when Starsky had stormed out of Kira's house. Still taste the salty tang of blood from biting his lip to keep from calling Starsky back. Starsky had driven away in a car the same color as the blood Hutch had smeared on his hand when he'd wiped his face.

No. Kira was a symptom, but she wasn't to blame. Anymore than every case that had beaten them down and smashed them into the earth had been. They'd forgotten to close ranks and join forces. He'd thought that throwing their badges into the sea would forge the weakened links back together. How ironic that it had taken Kira herself to mend the bridge.

So they'd come back together and spent that night talking, full of drunken humor and masculine bravado. Who needed stinking women when they had brotherhood? They'd started Monopoly, then chess, and a giddy hand of poker, losing interest in each because simply talking, listening to each other, was more fun than any game.

They spent their two days off blissed out on the joy of being together, doing nothing in particular. Beer, pizza, and lazy afternoons draped all over each other watching football games on the boob tube. Starsky had finally begged off, with the excuse that he needed fresh clothes if they were going to work the next morning. They'd parted with a strange reluctance, as if the trivial hours between midnight and seven a.m. would lengthen into years before they saw each other again.

"I'll pick you up," Starsky promised, then frowned.

"What?"

"Does it hurt?"

"What?" As usual, Hutch felt himself sinking into the quagmire of one of Starsky's incomprehensible conversations.

"Where I hit you." Starsky brushed his thumb over Hutch's lips, then mimed a quick one two at his belly. "You're hard-headed, Hutchinson."

Remorse clogged his throat. "I shouldn't have . . ."

"I shouldn't a hit you, but I did." Starsky shrugged and dismissed the whole affair. "My ma used to say, who told you life was fair? I know how you think, buddyboy. You bleed all over for the homeless and street people and dam it all up when it comes to yourself. It hurts you more than it hurts anybody else." He'd grinned then, on the landing of Hutch's apartment, exuding happiness underscored by something Hutch would have once sworn Starsky didn't have--a certain solemn maturity. They'd both grown up. "Give that ticker a break or you'll rip your heart to shreds."

Hutch had watched him gallop down the stairs, still feeling the ghost of Starsky's hand on his lip. Except Starsky had hit him in the guts, literally and figuratively.

 _If I see with my heart, you live your whole life with yours, Starsk._

Slumped against the back wall of the shower, Hutch shivered. He'd been under the water far too long--the ends of his fingers felt like raisins. He fumbled around and found a towel, and stepped out of the shower, rubbing himself dry. The towel was too small and as scratchy as used sand paper. The borrowed surgical scrubs were as soft as pajamas. He tightened the draw string at the waist, staring at his unrecognizable reflection in the mirror.

He'd gotten old since ten that morning. What time was it now? The family room was deserted, but the clock beside the cupboard said fifteen minutes to four. That had to be some kind of mistake. It couldn't possibly be the same day--the same universe as the one where he'd played a goofy round of ping pong with his best friend. His heart lurched and he had to steady himself on the doorframe. Not the same day at all.

 _Starsky._

Something had changed, he was sure of it. The surgery must have ended.

Hutch grabbed up the few things he'd emptied out of his pockets before Calla had taken away his clothes, throwing them willy-nilly into a patient belongings bag. He tucked his folded square of paper containing Starsky's life blood into the chest pocket of the scrub top, right over his heart, just where it belonged, and went out to face the inevitable.

Starsky had survived, despite massive damage, and existed in that between state called a coma. Hutch kept watch, dependent upon the ventilator that inflated Starsky's lungs for both their lives. He breathed with Starsky and because of him, despondent and remote. Huggy, Dobey, other friends and colleagues came and went, cajoling Hutch to join the living but he could only be fully alive when he was near enough to Starsky to feel pain. He couldn't touch his partner, but he could touch the small square of paper he now kept safe in his jacket pocket.

He unfolded the paper to look at the contents. Red on white. Evidence of life, of a heart that kept beating beyond all expectation.

Another attempt on Starsky's life galvanized him to action, forcing him to move and react. He'd vowed to bring down the shooter, and finally there was some sign that the wall concealing the man's identity was cracking.

That he was once more in a parking garage should have warned him. Looking back, Hutch knew he hadn't been paying enough attention, he'd been too tired, too distracted with half his brain back in Starsky's room standing guard.

Two men were blocking the car he'd borrowed, one hurt and unable to get out of his wheelchair. It should have been safe, just like two cops sitting in a squad car in the Metro garage should have been safe.

Deception, and treachery, and a gunshot that echoed loudly in the confines of the cement walls. A knife glinted in the overhead lights when it sliced across Hutch's wrist. He never felt a thing, not even when the blade went deep, cutting across muscles and tendons.

Ignoring the wound, Hutch went after his prey with the deliberation of a hunting dog on the scent, that one altercation bringing links to the murderer out into the open. Jenny Brown and her lawyer--he wasn't sure how they were connected yet, but he knew he was on the right track. Things were starting to take shape.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The detective's squadroom was eerily quiet at eleven thirty at night, with most of the other detectives still sharing offices in other parts of the building because of the painters. The smell of latex semi-gloss was overpowering, but Hutch needed the solitude. He'd ignored the needs of his own body for nearly a day, driving himself without rest or food. Now it was either sit down, or fall down. The telephone in his hand was as heavy as lead when he dialed Dobey's direct number at the hospital. He bounced a Ping-Pong ball from the morning's game, the plink plonk on the desk top eerily reminiscent of Starsky's heart monitor.

"I think you had better get here as soon as you can, Hutch," Dobey said, and Hutch didn't even take the time to hang up the receiver. He had no memory of the drive across town, just the unending scream of the siren underscoring the hiccuping beat of his heart. Breathing was almost more trouble than it was worth, his chest aching as if someone were repeatedly pushing down on unhealed wounds.

 _don't die, don't die, don't die_

"He's alive," Dr. Madson had said with almost reverent surprise. "Not out of it yet, but I'll be damned if he isn't alive."

Hutch felt his knees trembling, the relief too overwhelming to accept at face value. He dug his fingers into the window molding, watching every move the nurses made. Bandages were replaced, syringes whisked out of sight--order replacing chaos. What had he missed?

"My blond brother, you're bleeding," Huggy said with concern.

He'd forgotten--the red spots marring the white fabric had seemed so normal after all this time that he'd stopped seeing them. Not Starsky's blood, anyway. His own, which was much less important.

"Let me see that." Dr. Madson gently turned Hutch's arm, examining the bandana covering his wrist. "Have you seen a doctor?"

"All day long." He couldn't help it, the question was too ridiculous. Letting go of the window ledge might not have been a good idea; the linoleum floor was suddenly not quite flat and he had the sense of leaning very slightly to the left, though he knew he was standing up straight.

"For your arm," Madson clarified with an understanding smile. "I'll walk you down to the ER."

"What about . . .?" Hutch looked at Starsky. One nurse was adjusting the IV tubing, another suctioning the tube in his mouth. Starsky was surrounded with medical staff, but he was all alone. The floor tilted more to the left and Hutch swallowed against the ache in his chest.

"Doc, you keep watch over Starsky. I'll take care of Mr. America here." Huggy hooked an arm around Hutch's shoulder. "Captain Dobey, you need to be going on home to that excellent wife and your fine children or they'll be putting out an APB on your black butt."

"Huggy." Dobey cleared his throat, as if amused in spite of himself at the description. "I'm still coordinating with my officers on the case. The squad car was found abandoned out in Torrance less than an hour ago. With any luck we can get some prints off the steering wheel."

"I can do that," Hutch said, the tiny bit of information reanimating him. Those bastards, masquerading as cops to lure out their victim. If they hadn't been so careless--if they hadn't parked so tightly that they'd smashed another car on the way out--would he have even noticed them at all? He'd had been lying on the cold cement of the garage floor, separated from Starsky by the bulk of the Torino. What was worse, both of them dying in a hail of bullets or only one assaulted so brutally, leaving the other to cope with the fallout? If he had been shot, would Starsky be as ineffectual as he had been so far? Hutch didn't think so.

"Hutch, my man," Huggy tugged at his uninjured arm to pull him over to the elevators. "Our boy's in good hands. You can't do everything. Gotta be rested up for when he wakes up and bedevils us all with his bad jokes and weird trivia."

"I told you he was going to die," Hutch whispered when the elevator doors slid shut. How was it that he and Huggy were always admitting truths with the whine of the elevator in their ears?

"He came back, Hutch, for you." Huggy blinked hard and looked away.

Hutch had never seen him cry. Huggy had been so strong through all this, bucking him up whenever possible. Hutch wanted to do something in return, but he could barely stand. Being supportive would have to wait until he had the energy.

"I was scared, man," Huggy continued. "Alarms, blinking lights on the machines, and then you burst in like a Greek god on a mission, and he came back." There was such awe in his voice.

"I came back for _him,_ " Hutch corrected, confused and detached.

The ER was far quieter at midnight than it had been at eleven a.m. No shooting victims on gurneys, dripping blood on the scuffed floor. Only a lone woman with an ice pack pressed to her swollen eye occupied the waiting room. A fluorescent bulb flickered maddeningly overhead, giving the whole place the strobe effect of an old German movie. Colors muted: black, white and indeterminate grays, only the reds bright enough to see in the flat light. Hutch closed his eyes and opened them again.

Red on white, dabs and splashes, only this time confined to one small area on the left sleeve. Barely a sleeve, mostly just the cuff of his jacket and the red bandana Hutch had found stuffed in his pocket to use for a bandage. He couldn't remember where it had come from. A souvenir of Pine Lake? Starsky's idea of cowboy gear for their memorial walk-ons in the Steve Hanson movie?

He and Huggy sat side by side, wrapped up in their own morbid thoughts. Hutch could feel the tension in his chest, alert for every overhead page that might be another Code Blue to the ICU. None came. The battered woman was treated and released. A drunk stinking of old Thunderbird and street sweat came in, his transistor radio blaring Casey and the Sunshine Band. Huggy rolled his eyes even though he was snapping his fingers to the beat.

"Ken Hutchinson?" A nurse with two pens shoved into her hair Japanese style ushered him into an exam room. She raised her eyes at the improvised bandage on Hutch's wrist, but proceeded to unwind it, the dried blood flaking off when she dropped it onto a silver tray. Huggy averted his eyes with a wave of one long hand and went off to check on Starsky's progress.

"Lots of people don't like to watch this kind of thing," she said. "You seem pretty stoic though. Sorry if this hurts, but the fabric was stuck on pretty well."

Except it didn't hurt. He didn't feel a thing. Hutch watched as she washed off the dried blood, completely detached from his own arm.

Hutch had only a vague recollection of being stabbed. His own injury was so meaningless that he hadn't given it much thought. None at all, to be truthful.

"Can you take off your jacket?" she asked. "Doctor Griffin will be here in a few to put in a couple of stitches. She'll probably give you a prescription for some antibiotics, since that wasn't treated all day. Ward off an infection."

"Thanks." Hutch shucked the coat, easing the cuff over the gauze covered gash. He flipped it onto the gurney, hearing the paper covering crinkle.

Red on white. Blood. His own--Starsky's--who knew anymore?

One handed, Hutch fished out the paper square he'd kept safe in his pocket and peeled back the folds to stare at the flakes of Starsky's blood.

The color of his heart was Starsky. Starsky had always been red-- Crimson shiny, Tomato bright, Candy Apple flashing in sun, vibrant life impossible to snuff out. He needed that brilliance, that essence that animated Starsky. He needed Starsky.

It was an easy thing to push the gauze off his wrist. Much harder was gathering up the blood chips with the end of his finger. He finally tapped the paper over his open flesh, an unorthodox transfusion.

Red on red. Blood called to blood, uniting brothers.

Starsky blended into Hutch, reawakening his soul. Pain blossomed, deep and stark, nerve ending howling in anguish.

 _Alakazam, Captain Marvel. You're my pal, Hutch. You know how beautiful your eyes become when you are angry?You big lug._

He took a breath and felt two chests rise, two hearts beat in synchronous harmony.

"Looks like someone did a number on you." Dr. Griffin was plain-faced and square, but her touch was gentle on his wrist. "Can you feel this?" She touched the end of his thumb, his palm.

"Yeah." he said gruffly. It hurt like blazes. Flashes of red behind his eyeballs, red on black, shockingly bright. He was alive. Starsky was alive. The bastard who caused this would soon be very dead.

FIN


End file.
